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Monday, April 6, 2009

Last Friday, the Workforce Fairness Institute launched EFCA Wire, "a new 'news' site that's totally devoted to making the case against" the Employee Free Choice Act. As The Progress Report has noted, the Workforce Fairness Institute is nothing more than a corporate front group "founded by several longtime Republican operatives," and likely funded by anti-EFCA giants like Wal-Mart and Home Depot. In a recent interview with Fox News's Glenn Beck, one of those operatives -- former Bush and McCain advisor Mark McKinnon -- pushed the line that Employee Free Choice removes the secret-ballot option, a claim that even the conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board has begrudgingly admitted is false. Therefore, it's no surprise that EFCA Wire's main purpose is to promote yet another lie. According to the Washington Post's Greg Sargent, the site will place "a particular emphasis on the damage [the Employee Free Choice Act] would allegedly do the economy." But estimates by the Economic Policy Institute show that Employee Free Choice would actually lead to higher wages, better benefits, and a more productive economy.

2 comments:

The only thing I have ever heard about EFCA is that it takes away the secret ballot option. Which makes it all the more interesting that it appears not to be true. From ThinkProgress, I found this quote:To generate opposition to the EFCA, conservatives have been spouting the canard that the legislation will strip workers of their right to a secret ballot. Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN), who opposes EFCA, argued, "This act takes away the right to a secret ballot." In a similar vein, Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao writes today in the Wall Street Journal, "It is incredible that interest groups who say they are advocates for workers are striving to end workers' opportunity to have private union elections." In reality, the EFCA does not abolish elections. It merely shifts the balance of the playing field -- from one that is currently tilted overwhelmingly in favor of employers who dictate whether employees can organize, to a process that is instead employee-driven. "Under the proposed legislation, workers get to choose the union formation process -- elections or majority sign-up. What the Employee Free Choice Act does prevent is an employer manipulating the flawed system to influence the election outcome." The myths propagated by the right have prompted some Democrats, including Sens. Ben Nelson (D-NE) and Blanche Lincoln (D-AR), to withhold their support for the bill.

...it frustrates me to no end that conservatives (and, yes, liberals are guilty of it, too) can't have a simple, honest conversation about something. Just like Wall-Street whores and their brand of "capitalism", these so-called conservatives give conservatism a bad name.